


the end of an era

by cowboy_casey



Category: Unus Annus - Fandom
Genre: Cuddling, Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Thunderstorms, just a little ngl, ships can be read as platonic or romantic!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:35:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27556948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboy_casey/pseuds/cowboy_casey
Summary: Everyone deals with grief in different ways. Sometimes it's easier to have your friends alongside you.
Relationships: Amy Nelson/Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach & Amy Nelson & Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach/Amy Nelson, Mark Fischbach/Amy Nelson/Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 18
Kudos: 226





	the end of an era

It’s storming outside. 

That’s the first thing Ethan notices as they leave the studio. 

There’s no rain, not yet, just the gentle rumble of thunder and faded flashes of lightning in his peripheral vision to remind him that it’s storming. Which is good, he thinks, because he can’t quite tell if anything is real or not until the lightning strikes and the booming thunder coils tight around his heart and keeps it beating, and he is reminded that, yes, this is very much real, and yes, they did just delete Unus Annus. 

The year-long project had finally met its end.

It still didn’t feel real. 

Mark makes a low noise in the back of his throat, almost like the thunder, and Ethan glances over at him. The handsome all-white suit flashes in the dark of the night, but it’s too loud, too much to look at after what they had just done, and Ethan _swears_ anyone within a mile could see it, so he focuses on the man’s face instead. 

Where tears run down his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry,” Ethan rasps. His hand clenches around the starched fabric, and it’s weird because he remembers being farther away a second ago. Their faces hadn’t been this close - he couldn’t see the tears on his friend’s face without the help of the lightning. 

Mark’s hand rests on his, and the quickly-cooling liquid still left on the man’s fingers makes him tremble a little. He hasn’t seen the man cry this hard in a _while_. It’s sobering. 

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m glad we did it.”

And Ethan - well, he _almost_ breaks at that. His fingers curl around the suit even tighter, until his nails press into his palm through the fabric, and a painful lump spikes right behind his eyes. “You’re crying.” 

A bittersweet smile flicks across Mark’s face, and he gently pries Ethan’s hand away from his now-wrinkled suit jacket. “I know. That’s okay.” 

“No - No, it’s…” The burning pain behind his eyes drops to his throat, blocking his airway and prohibiting him from talking. He feels lightheaded, kind of, and he quickly reaches for the other man’s hand to stabilize himself. 

A loud boom of thunder jostles the lump, and he feels a little better. 

“I don’t want you to cry,” he murmurs. Mark’s hand twitches a little around his own, and a watery chuckle escapes him. “Fuck, I really wasn’t prepared for crying. Stop it.”

“I guess I’ll leave, then,” Amy calls. Her voice is thick with tears, too, even though she’s a couple yards away from them, and the guilt Ethan feels at forgetting her is quickly drowned by her smile. 

Even now, drowning in grief and the darkness around them, it’s blinding. 

Mark curls around her when she reaches them, and Ethan can barely hear the quiet “no, don’t leave!” mumbled into her hair. It’s sweet.

The thunder claps again, and unlike him and Mark, Amy flinches a little at it. “We still have to get the equipment into the car,” she says, twisting her head away from Mark’s neck. “The big stuff is staying here for the night, but the cameras…” 

And, fuck, that’s right. They still need to pack up what they can, bring home the last remaining evidence of Unus Annus. The final nail in the coffin. 

Ethan doesn’t want to go back inside. 

A gentle tugging on his hand brings him back to reality, and he’s reminded that Mark and Amy are still here. They still exist. And, by extension, he does too. 

It’s weird. 

A final flash of lighting catches his attention before he’s met with the still-moving spiral on the wall and flickering timer on the TV, and he’s distracted by the fact that someone should really turn that off. Preferably someone who can stand to get closer without breaking down. 

Ethan is not that person, so he directs his attention towards the mics strewn about the studio, collecting them to bring back to the car. 

“I think that’s everything for tonight,” Amy says after the third trip. She wipes her hands on her pants, and Ethan tries not to think too hard about the color scheme. It’s still too raw. “Should we get going?” 

After a quick agreement and good-bye, the three of them are piled into Mark’s car. 

He’s crowded in the back, away from Amy and Mark and with the props and equipment they could fit, but Ethan isn’t complaining. No one can see him cry back here.

A little bit into the ride, a small sniffling catches his attention, and he looks at Mark through the rear-view mirror. His eyes are red, and it’s easier to see the shiny tears slipping down his face in the street-lights than it was with the lightning. Ethan can’t look away. “I can’t believe it’s over.” 

Nobody answers him - they don’t need to. They’re all still in a state of shock, left reeling from the long-time-coming, all-too-soon change. It’s an understood thing. 

The lightning still flashes outside, but it’s harder to see through the blinking streetlights. It’s a little upsetting, in all honesty. Ethan wants to reach out and smash the bulbs of every single one of the lampposts, just to see the blinding white light clearly again. 

And then he realizes that his urge to smash things isn’t entirely limited to the lampposts, and it isn’t truly caused by the want to see lightning, so he sits on his hands for the remainder of the ride, just in case. 

They get to Mark’s house, eventually, and make quick work of bringing everything inside and dumping it unceremoniously on his kitchen table. They’re too exhausted to do much else, so this will have to do for now. 

Mark and Amy both immediately go to get ready for bed. It’s a little surprising - he was expecting at least a final goodbye before he inevitably has to spend the night alone, but he gets it. Even seeing the delete button was exhausting, let alone the herculean effort it took to push it. 

He’s about to grab for his keys when a warm hand pushes down on his shoulder. They spin him around easily - far more easily than they would on a normal day - but neither seem to care. 

“You should take your suit off, Eth,” Mark murmurs. The small sobs he had tried so hard to suppress in the car earlier had worn away at his voice, leaving it raspy and rumbly, and Ethan’s so glad for that because he’s not sure he could handle anything else. “You don’t want to ruin it by sleeping in it.” 

“I was… going to? I just need to get home first.” 

The genuine surprise in his friend’s expression already throws him off, but the soft (almost sad, if he thinks about it too hard) “home? I thought you were staying,” Mark whispers leaves him reeling. 

“Uh,” he stutters. Amy walks out in her pajamas, then, looking equally as confused at his suit, and Ethan swallows. What the fuck? “Staying? I thought - I thought you’d want me to go. So you two could be alone.” 

Mark stares at him, and in the silence the ticking of their wall clock seems to grow louder. Or maybe he’s just never going to get over the sound. “Did… Did I not tell you?” 

“Tell me what?” 

Mark scratches his chin, and looks anywhere but him. When Ethan glances over at Amy for help, he almost giggles at how she’s already glaring at her boyfriend. Almost. “Amy and I - we wanted to have a sleepover. Like, a real one. Figured we’d all need it after this.” 

“I thought Mark would’ve told you yesterday, so you could plan,” Amy teases. At the puppy-dog expression Mark gives her, she softens. “But - yeah, if you’d like to stay, you’re absolutely welcome to. It’s too late for you to drive home, especially after…” 

She doesn’t need to finish. 

Too desperate for any sort of comfort, Ethan quickly agrees, changing into some of Mark’s older clothes and getting ready to sleep in record time. The blankets and pillows from the last time he slept over are still out, miraculously, and he falls into them, letting the cool fabric wrap around him and tangle in his legs, keeping him tethered to the here and now. 

Mark slides in next to him, with Amy following not too long after, and the room descends into silence. 

Silence that practically forces Ethan to think about what happened today. 

He rolls over on his side, towards his friends, and is greeted with Mark already staring at him. It’s not as surprising as it probably should be; they stare at each other a lot nowadays. 

“You can cry,” the older man whispers. His hands move upwards, and Ethan briefly lets himself think they’re going to touch him, pull him closer and keep him grounded. 

They land on his pillow, instead. He lets out a small breath.

Shaking his head, Ethan scoots backwards, away from the offending warmth and dangerous thoughts. It’s too late for this. He’s just confused. “I don’t need to.” 

A clap of thunder shakes the house, and Amy rolls over to peer over Mark’s side at him. Her hair falls over both of their shoulders, and he wants to smile at how endearing it is. “I get that. I’m still… processing too. I just - can’t believe it’s over, you know?” 

“Yeah. It was just such a _constant_ part of life, for all of us…” 

Mark tsks, and crosses his arms over his stomach. “That’s the thing, though,” he interrupts, “it was never permanent - the illusion of it being a constant was the whole _point_. We all knew it wasn’t going to be around for long - it wasn’t going to stay. This just shows that we can’t take things for granted. Even something we knew was going to end soon we didn’t… didn’t truly realize that it was going away until it was gone.” 

“Reiterating what the channel was about doesn’t really help us get over it, though, Mark,” Amy points out. A beat passes, and then they’re all weakly giggling into the darkness of the early morning. It’s not even funny, really. None of this is. But being here, with his friends, knowing they feel the exact same way as he does - it’s comforting.

So he shifts closer to them, lets his hand curl around the fabric of Mark’s shirt for the second time that night, lets his hand intertwine with Amy’s, and takes whatever they’re willing to give him. 

The rain outside drums against the roof, fat droplets creating a soothing lullaby, and after careful deliberation Ethan finds that his head fits perfectly into the junction between Mark’s chest and his pillow. Amy’s rests on top of the actual chest, rather than to the side of it like his, and there’s something about looking up at her - seeing the way the soft lights from varying electronics bounce around her dark eyes - that loosens something in him. Dissipates all of the tension that had been building up inside. 

“I’m glad I can be everyone’s pillow tonight,” Mark grumbles, but he doesn’t make any move to push them off, so Ethan tangles his legs with theirs and falls asleep listening to the rain, thunder, and steady breathing beside his ear. 

Unus Annus is gone, but they're still here, and right now, that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> whoo boy,,, i still can't believe it's gone. a whole year, just. Gone. 
> 
> there's so much i could say, but i don't want to Bore anyone, so i'll just say this: i'm going to miss it so much. it's been a constant presence in my life for roughly a year, and always something i could look forward to or seek out for comfort. though i know saying goodbye won't be easy, even though the channel is already deleted, i am grateful for the time i had, and will always remember it fondly.
> 
> i hope y'all're staying safe in these Trying Times (tm) <33


End file.
